Petersburg restaurant to close after 80 years

PETERSBURG (AP) -- The Homestead Restaurant, a Petersburg institution for 80 years, will close its doors at the end of the month.

The Homestead is the only 24-hour restaurant in the history of Petersburg and has been a hub for coffee and conversation.

Otis and Diane Marsh have owned the establishment since 1983. They told the Petersburg Pilot they have agreed to sell the restaurant to NorQuest Seafoods.

The company plans to turn the building into a cookhouse for seasonal cannery workers.

''I'm pooped,'' Diane Marsh said. ''It's been 16 years, four months and 29 days. But it's been a great school for us. It was the school of hard knocks and I have a masters in that now.''

The restaurant has operated under a variety of names but many of the patrons have been gathering regularly at booths and counter stools since World War II.

A stool in the diner is dedicated with a brass plaque to the memory of one of the regulars, Palmer Pederson, who died in 1996. Pederson's stool will be donated to the Clausen Memorial Museum when the restaurant shuts its doors.